Letters to the editor: China history lessons

SummaryIn the depressing mood of economies the world over, the call of the recent Third Plenum

In the depressing mood of economies the world over, the call of the recent Third Plenum of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China to “foster an inclusive, innovative, and sustainable growth order” has not received due attention. Command economies like China, predicated on the power of the proletariat, did reach higher base growth sooner than normal democratic regimes. To achieve sustained and elevated levels progress now on, individual entrepreneurship alone can contribute. And that comes with a price-greater personal freedom. The USSR, on similar path earlier, could not act in time and party oligarchs under the hubris of totalitarian power not only ruined the economy but dismembered the vast republic. China clearly is keen to learn from history. At this bivouac of reorienting national directions, it may yet manage to keep the nation together by a calculated veering away from blind growth. But inclusiveness, political and economic, does not come easy as even Obama finds in his hoary democratic nation. Will China have the patience to seed socio-political and economic inclusiveness, in a soil driven barren for decades by ideological over-saturation, remains to be seen.